The Supreme Court today approved a settlement between Reliance Communications and the Indian unit of Ericsson, clearing the way for the Anil Ambani-led company’s assets to Reliance Jio Infocomm. The apex court not only directed Rcom to pay Rs 550 crore to Ericsson by Oct. 1, but also ordered the firm’s Chairman, Anil, to give an undertaking for the same. The company’s shares surged to a day’s high of little over 15% following the top court’s order today. The news comes after Ericsson, on Thursday withdrew from the settlement deal with Rcom, as it had objections to the settlement terms suggested by the Indian telco. This also comes just two weeks after the company said that it is confident of closing the sale of its wireless assets to Reliance Jio Infocomm in the July-September quarter of this fiscal year. Case history Reliance Jio had said in January that it would buy wireless infrastructure assets from RCom in an all-cash deal, which experts pegged at Rs 24,000 crores. This deal, which was set to be completed by March-end, was a big part of RCom’s effort to cut its debt. RCom said that after the purchase Jio will gain over 178,000 kilometres of optic fibre, more than 43,000 cellphone towers and 122.4 MHz of 4G Spectrum in the 800/900/1800/2100 MHz bands. The deal even got its approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) earlier in March. However, it could not be executed as companies continued to challenge it. In March, an arbitration court stayed sale of RCom’s wireless…
